Movie Night: Zero Dark Thirty

Yesterday all day I could tell the husband/lover/best friend was hankering to see a good movie.  So we planned our date night to take us to our local movie theater, The Campus Theatre, right on the main street of our little town.  Showing was the movie "Zero Dark Thirty," nominated recently for Best Picture.  The movie "Argo" won that honor, but the movie we saw was truly a fine film, certainly worth seeing.

We always enjoy seeing movies in this hometown theater of ours.  The Campus Theater is a non-profit historic movie theatre located in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.  Built in 1941, and one of the few remaining single-screen art deco movie houses in the country, the Campus Theatre remains dedicated to the promotion of the art of cinema and historic preservation of this architectural treasure.

I always enjoy taking my seat and having a brief look around before the show starts.  Recent renovations have focused on restoring the interior artwork.  Here is just one of the large pieces in the theatre.

Several rows down and to my left, I noticed this strange patron.  I wonder if he enjoyed the flick.

The movie spans a time period of about 10 to 12 years.  Over all of this time, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal - to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden.  "Zero Dark Thirty" is the story of history's greatest manhunt for the world's most dangerous man.

I was quite impressed that even though I already knew the ending to this story, my suspense was maintained right up until the very end.  I had to remind myself several times that this is just a movie, especially as the culminating mission is happening.

The investigator Maya, played so intensely by Jessica Chastain, has spent over a decade of her life in this one pursuit.  Maya cries in the end, because bin Laden's death is not an uncomplicated victory.  Director Kathryn Bigelow has claimed that we are still left with the national and global issue of "Now what?"

Although the hype during the three months prior to the Academy Awards ceremony last weekend led many to believe that this film's nomination would end in the reward of Best Picture, unfortunately the only oscar it received was a shared oscar for sound editing.  

As time got closer to the date of the Academy Awards, many people complained that this movie falsely depicted torture as vital in finding bin Laden, and therefore portrayed it in a falsely positive light.  

I don't want to get involved in a debate of that sort.  All I know is that this is a movie that needed to be made.  Hopefully it will be a loud and clear message to many of the countries and peoples that have no regard for others' lives.  

Yes, this is just a movie.  I still appreciated its reminder that one of the most hideous links in worldwide terrorism is now gone.  And that's no small deal, oscar or not.